SmartShepherd rounds up international award

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SmartShepherd rounds up international award

An agricultural start-up company based in UNE’s Smart Regional Incubator (SRI) has earned international recognition. SmartShepherd, the brainchild of Dave Rubie, pictured, and Glenn Vassallo,…

An agricultural start-up company based in UNE’s Smart Regional Incubator (SRI) has earned international recognition.

SmartShepherd, the brainchild of Dave Rubie, pictured, and Glenn Vassallo, was this week named the Most Innovative International Startup at the 2018 Agfunder Innovation Awards at the World Agri-Tech Innovation Summit in San Francisco.

The fledgling product has already struck a chord with its target market. Rather than popping champagne corks in California over the AgFunder win, Dave was in Western Australia selling his product.

“We have made sales in the Falkland Islands and signed agreements in New Zealand and South Africa,” Dave said. “Next we’d like to push in to Europe and North America, because we know this product has the ability to make serious improvements to animal welfare and productivity.

“It was only in October 2015 that we sat down seriously to develop the concept, and to be already selling the product and getting global recognition is very gratifying.”

The Agri-Tech Innovation Summit attracts hundreds of agribusiness, solution providers, entrepreneurs and investors from all over the world, with the aim of accelerating the commercialisation of advanced agricultural technologies. Award winners are determined by community votes.

The University of New England respects and acknowledges that its people, programs and facilities are built on land, and surrounded by a sense of belonging, both ancient and contemporary, of the world's oldest living culture. In doing so, UNE values and respects Indigenous knowledge systems as a vital part of the knowledge capital of Australia.